A Morning in Vienna
by Essos
Summary: N'Jadaka is having coffee a block away when the signing of the Sokovia Accords is interrupted by a bombing.


It's a fine morning to be in Vienna.

Casually peering through the café window beside him, N'Jadaka rips open a tiny packet and tips the sugar into his cup of coffee.

The street is packed with news vans. There's a lot of bustle involving cameras and cords and tripods. Reporters, badges swinging from their necks, power-walk to the Vienna International Centre a block away. Amongst them N'Jadaka has already spotted a few incompetents trying too hard to mingle, with baseball caps pulled low over dark sunglasses, their jacket collars turned up. Amateurs.

He takes a sip of his coffee, turns his eyes back to his book.

It's a hardback. About a patriarch locked in the attic of a rundown manor. Perfect for summer reading.

This is N'Jadaka's first leave which coincided with the summer.

The last time he had the chance to read for pleasure was February last year.

The last time N'Jadaka scribbled _Erik Stevens_ on a book's title page was way back in MIT. Back then he didn't need to be prepared to incapacitate a person with a hardback and a pen, and he just couldn't be bothered to buy another copy if the book got too bloodied.

Besides nobody alive in his life right now knows his birth name. The last people who called him N'Jadaka were his parents. When he tried to introduce himself as N'Jadaka to the other kids in the apartment block in Oakland, his name sounded too clumsy on their tongues. Mangled. So he was always Erik, or E, outside his home.

At home, though, N'Jadaka has spoken two languages since birth. He can't remember a world which has only one language. Even Mom picked up Xhosa from Baba, and encouraged N'Jadaka to have perfect accents for both.

In high school he thought about insisting on being called N'Jadaka. He wanted to watch people sweat and stumble over his name, especially those fuckers who said shit about his hair and called him names. _See how heavy it is?_ he wanted to say. _Let me see you try to accommodate it. Adapt to it. Sear your entitled monolingual pie-holes._

Baba's ring suddenly burns against his chest, under his shirt.

N'Jadaka clenches his fist. Tamps down on the memories before they seethe over to the surface.

Everything's going to be okay.

Everything's going to be okay.

His breathing calms.

He's had twenty years of practice. And just as many years to map out how everything's going to work out. It's all up to him. There's absolutely no fucking room for incompetence.

The rage freezes again, cold and clinking around somewhere in his chest. And as it does, N'Jadaka's focus slides back beside his carefully cultivated patience.

This is a holiday, after all.

Just with a bonus little something.

N'Jadaka glances up as the café door opens and more customers shuffle in. Complaints on parking, on traffic. Praise for or criticism on the Sokovia Accords. Curiosity about the delegates.

He's also curious about certain delegates, all right.

Summer sunlight presses in through the wide glass windows. The flat screen on one side of the counter is broadcasting the steady stream of arrivals in the International Centre. Customers constantly swivel back to it, or to today's paper which has a column on the Lagos incident.

No one pays much attention to N'Jadaka in his corner.

There's a copy of the newspaper on his table. In his jacket pocket, a red pen's within easy reach. The bomber jacket itself is satin and bottle green, light enough to look right in summer, but dark enough not to stand out too much.

N'Jadaka pushes his glasses up his nose. Busily turns over a page.

The patriarch locked in the attic is slowly rocking in his chair. He's going to be poisoned by his two daughters. Awesome.

The voice from the flat screen changes.

English. With an accent like Baba's.

Slowly, N'Jadaka turns to the screen.

And there's the bastard.

 _T'Chaka, King of Wakanda_ , states the caption. He's not that much, is he. At least from what N'Jadaka can see. The bastard's old. Like a read newspaper, left out in the sun, the print faded. No doubt he's no longer the Black Panther.

N'Jadaka needs the bastard dead. He'd rather grab the titles of both king and Black Panther in one swoop, from the same person. And it's always best to attack during transitions of power.

"You have a cousin," Baba always told him, whenever N'Jadaka asked for stories of Wakanda. "Prince T'Challa, my brother's first born. When we return home you will meet him."

He plans to meet this prince, all right.

And N'Jadaka wonders if this cousin even knows he exists.

For the past few years, he's been trying to catch a glimpse of this cousin. He's always on the lookout for those rare occasions when Wakanda deigns to attend a global forum, to size up this cousin. N'Jadaka toyed with passing off as an usher in the International Centre, to get a close look at that bastard and his kid, but the idea of being of any kind of service to them ma –

"– GET DOWN!"

N'Jadaka jerks his head up, the TV explodes, down the street it explodes.

The café stills for a heartbeat.

Chaos erupts.

People jolt to their feet, and chairs are knocked down, and table legs screech against the floor. There's a mad scramble for the door. Emergency sirens come blasting from the street.

The flat screen blinks to a studio reporter. Bombs. Developing story.

N'Jadaka seizes his book and newspaper. He shoulders and elbows his way out onto the sidewalk, where people bump into him on the rush to the opposite direction of the International Centre.

He hurries to the stoop of a flower shop beside the café. From here, he can see the enormous smoke from down the block.

"Fuck," he mutters. Are they both dead?

N'Jadaka rejoins the rush of people on the sidewalk.

When he's two blocks away from the café he darts into a payphone and grabs into his jeans pocket for his phone.

More developing news.

Grainy footage of the bomber. Identified as James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier.

N'Jadaka slows his thumb on the article with the shot. The man's face is visible to the camera. No cover. This is shit. Obviously not the Winter Soldier. He's read files about this guy. They won't even know it's the Winter Soldier if this was the real deal.

List of casualties. King of Wakanda, dead.

N'Jadaka's fingers tighten on his phone. He can feel the weight of Baba's ring against his heart, burning against the frozen rage. Everything's going to be okay. He can almost taste the blood. And when he looks up at the payphone, N'Jadaka can make out the satisfied snarl on his face.

He breathes in, slowly.

Breathes out. Slowly.

Pocketing his phone, N'Jadaka briskly heads back towards the International Centre. He puts a slight frown on his face. Shifts his book and newspaper from one hand to the other in an anxious sort of way.

Up ahead, against the sun-drenched sky, the smoke sluggishly shifts and scatters. Now the street is packed with news vans and ambulances and police cars.

He fights off a smirk as he passes the flower shop. Whoever that obvious fake is, he just made it a little easier for N'Jadaka.

And that bastard dying on foreign soil, so far from home. It just keeps getting better.

He knows there will be agents here, if there aren't any yet. They've been on the hunt for Barnes for two years, after all, ever since that SHIELD info dump. Luckily N'Jadaka is on leave because this, here and now, is where he needs to be.

N'Jadaka spots him sitting on a sidewalk bench.

He's speaking to a red-haired woman. Agent Romanoff.

N'Jadaka pauses under one of the trees lining the sidewalk. He fetches his phone from his jeans pocket and calls his own apartment landline.

"Erik Stevens. Leave your message and I'll get back to you."

"Hey," N'Jadaka says, very much aware of his peripheral vision. "Hey. Have to say, it's a fine morning to be in Vienna. Just don't send flowers to that little shit; even freshman you would've known better than to pull such an amateur move." He lets out a laugh. "We gonna be okay."

An ambulance wails past him.

When N'Jadaka slants his eyes to follow its flashing lights, he sees that the cousin has already got up and striding towards his direction.

"Everything's going to be okay," N'Jadaka promises. Then he ends the call, turns around three inches too wide, and bumps shoulders with the cousin.

N'Jadaka's book tumbles down to the sidewalk, followed by his newspaper.

The cousin drops his handkerchief.

"I'm," N'Jadaka begins, "I'm so sorry, man. Wait – lemme –"

The cousin seems to come out of some sort of haze. Grief, that must be it. If he's taken the herb he should have better instincts. He crouches down beside N'Jadaka and quickly picks up the book and the newspaper.

There's blood on the purple handkerchief. N'Jadaka hopes it's the bastard's.

He straightens up, holds out the handkerchief. "Here, man." N'Jadaka smiles widely, apologetically, the smile which pops out his dimples.

The cousin blinks. He dusts off N'Jadaka's book and newspaper, then accepts the handkerchief.

N'Jadaka keeps smiling, and sure enough, the tight line around the cousin's mouth softens and his clouded eyes sharpen on N'Jadaka.

So this is Prince T'Challa. _Well, Baba, there you go. We've met._

N'Jadaka immediately catalogues that T'Challa is almost the same height as he is. He's almost the same build, too, lean and sleek like a panther. Yeah. He'll be easy to take down.

But T'Challa's shoulders are strung tight, his eyes shadowed. Rage, N'Jadaka reads, grief.

N'Jadaka's own shoulders were smaller when he felt those things. Grief, then rage. His shoulders were wider, but still not a man's, when he realised that it's all up to him. No one's going to do anything, to go save his brothers and sisters and to change the world, and it's all up to him.

He wonders how losing a father feels like to T'Challa. Whether it's a relentless cold or a seething fire. But even the world is kinder to T'Challa in this instance, N'Jadaka thinks irritably. Losing his father when he's long past being a helpless boy, and vengeance is easily at hand.

"My apologies," T'Challa says. He hands back N'Jadaka's stuff. The tree curved above them rustles in the breeze, and sunlight catches on T'Challa's royal ring, on the dots of blood on his cuffs.

"It's fine," N'Jadaka waves away. "It's total chaos around here."

"Still, I should have been paying better attention." Christ, he even sounds earnest about it, his big eyes intent on N'Jadaka. "I apologise. My mind has been on this –"

N'Jadaka interrupts, "Man, it's cool. We're all a mess here." He gestures around at the packed street. "You go on your way, I'm gonna go too. Everything's going to be okay."

A beat.

"I hope so," T'Challa says, voice soft and grave. Then he gives a final nod before striding away.

He watches T'Challa's fist curl again, tight against the royal ring. If he's planning on going after Barnes or that fake little shit, N'Jadaka hopes T'Challa doesn't die.

Not yet.

He stands under the tree until T'Challa gets swallowed up by the crowd, his mind already running through his next points of action.

Seems like it's time to get in touch with a certain white bastard.

He saunters to the opposite direction, relishing the sunshine against his face. It's almost noon and the summer sunlight has turned into a hot gold, slicing through windows and sidewalks and cars, through the shouts and crying, the smell of smoke and blood. N'Jadaka feels a corner of his lips quirk up.

Everything's going to be okay.

 _fin_


End file.
